From home
by planet p
Summary: A new home is never easy to adjust to.


1.

The indecision of a moment, the momentary processing of options, was like a mirror before the fist, or any other heavy object hit, before the glass shattered into shards in which you still saw yourself, but differently. That moment, and the moment after, was the defining moment of your future -- and every moment after was just the same as that moment before. That was how, they told you, alternate realities were created, or influenced, from millions upon billions upon who knew how many a figure of moments just like those.

Chloe didn't how that she believed in such a thing, she didn't know that she _could_. She could think of a dozen different words to describe it, that un-belief: trot, tosh, nonsense, rubbish, crap... they only got worse from there, but she couldn't decide whether she'd ever be willing to believe in something as such or not.

(It doesn't seem terribly important much of the time, but at other times, it seems _so, so_ important, as though it's only the _whole world_, or the whole of existence hinging on that one tiny, inconsequential thing: a belief. How strange the thought, she thinks.)

She sat in one room; she sat in another. She couldn't get comfortable. Maybe it's because she's on a spaceship, travelling through space. But that seems... Hell, she's human, too, right? So no, it's not strange, it's not absurd -- it's normal, typical, allowable.

She sick, sick of people telling her how she should be reacting, how she should react to this, to that; she's even sick, she thought, of them thinking it, of her thinking that they're thinking it. She just wanted to stop thinking, or to endlessly think upon... something else. Something that's okay... just okay; still okay. Something that didn't freak her the Hell out, like every day away from Earth, every day upon the _Destiny_.

Every day alone.

_I'm not alone!_ she screamed, but it didn't come through. _There are people! Just like me; people!_ But nothing. Nothing touched her; everything touched her. She hated everything, everything that had a name, that had no name; she hated it all.

It all made her life Hell.

* * *

2.

On Earth, it's the ocean that people thought of, and the sky, the image to its mirror. In space, it wasn't like that: there's space, and more space.

But...

Was there? Was that all? Planets? Suns (stars)? Asteroids? The dust of... of what?

At times, it seemed so hard to think, to just (even think).

Was a thought the same in space as on Earth, he wondered. Did it have the same properties as on Earth, or, detached (from home), did it become different, did it manifest differently? Could it... live outside, outside of the minds of its hosts, its creators? Was thought even created, or did it come to living beings, fully formed, perfect for just the situation that they found themselves in? Was thought, perhaps, instead, created by the many, the many living minds, co-operating on an as yet unknowable level as one, and did it come back, to the one, to the individual to shape their path, their life, for a specific purpose, or to an specific end; just one of many experiences that the whole absorbed, analysed?

But now, away from Earth, away from the birthplace, what of the thoughts, what of his thoughts? Where would they come from, and where would they go? Would they be different, wrong, somehow?

At times, he found it hard to sleep, too.

Maybe it was only that, he thought, the lack of sleep.

He needed to sleep.

Just sleep.

* * *

3.

It wasn't like those games, he thought. It's not like in games, at all. He thought, maybe it would be, maybe it'd be... a sure thing. But he's not sitting at home, or in some random cafe/shopping mall/library equipped with internet access... he's not safe, at all, in reality. He couldn't reach over for his drink, or get up and leave his chair to adjust the temperature setting dial on the central heating/air conditioning.

It's real life... and he's not safe.

He couldn't be assured... except by every moment that passed that he still breathed; a tiny, fragmenting, disintegrating hope that he discovered in pieces, like a skeleton after it was no longer a body, after it was no longer a life, a person.

He's scared, and it's not the scared where you know you're alive and that's okay; it's the scared where you don't know if you'll be alive for the next moment, or the next minute, even the next hour... and it doesn't kick, it's not rad, it's terrifyingly sucky!

He's not exactly popular, and he's not exactly a freak, but it's all crap!

He's scared, and heck, _yeah_, he knew that there was reason _enough_! More than enough!

You're stranded.

In space.

In a shitty spaceship.

Oh, yeah, that's falling to bits.

Only, don't forget -- you're in space.

(So you don't need air to breathe, do you? Man, that blows! Trash that -- what's that cheat again? You know, the one where you can't be killed, even though everyone else around you is dying? Hey, no wait, even better, go back to the start!)

He wished he could.

Fingers crossed, eyes scrunched up, and all. (God, how five-year-old!)

Right, don't forget: hands behind your back.

* * *

4.

It was not like Earth -- damn, no! -- it wasn't even like home -- double damn, with a cherry on top! -- but, even if everything around her had changed, she hadn't. And she was strong.

She did her job.

Her job was to help people.

And she did that.

Earth, the Pegasus, even here, on the _Destiny_. It wouldn't matter where... her job would remain the same.

So she remained the same.

Kinda.

She felt it; she felt it all. She'd never expected not to. To feel was to live; stop feeling, stop living. She just hoped... she hoped more: to be able to tolerate _more_, to be able to accept _more_; to _want_ to break down _less_.

She hoped to be stronger.

Why couldn't she be as strong as she wanted, when others had been so much stronger? Why the Hell not, when they'd come galaxies from home; when they'd lived.

Why couldn't she _live_?

Why couldn't she open her eyes and see _life_?

Why couldn't she see a future?

* * *

**From home** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Stargate: Universe_ or any of its characters.

_1. Chloe, 2. Rush, 3. Eli; 4. T.J. Thanks for reading._


End file.
